5 ms·

He makes the assertion that slavery (pg 71, section 3), where somebody rents you out to another, and wage labor, where you rent yourself out are an equivalent a

by eggy 12y ago

He makes the assertion that slavery (pg 71, section 3), where somebody rents you out to another, and wage labor, where you rent yourself out are an equivalent arrangement. This is an emotional appeal, rather than a logical one, and this type of 'reasoning' seems to be at the root of more assertions in the paper. You take the job that is available under the circumstances, primarily to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head, and secondarily, you work and hope for better to reach your goals and dreams.

dethstar 12y ago
You take the master that is willing to take you, primarily to put food in your mouth and roof over your head. edit: for the down voter(s). Take the time to argue how this is different (feel free to downvote me still) I don't really care about internet points but would rather engage in conversation about this topic.
- svedlin 12y ago
  "Those sent to work in town often had some input in their choice of master and some, like Frederick Douglass, were allowed to live on their own upon surrender of satisfactory wages." [1] That was probably far from the norm in the 1830's. Frederick Douglass was no less in bondage though. Later in life, Mr. Douglass said: "[E]xperience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other". [2] "Frederick Douglass was an African-American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement[.]" [3] (upvoted you) [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=jI4euhKoEaEC&pg=PA65 http://books.google.com/books?id=jI4euhKoEaEC&pg=PA65 [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&pg=PA676 http://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&pg=PA676 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass
- jvm 12y ago
  In anarchism, you take the egalitarian society that is willing to take you, primarily to put food in your mouth and roof over your head. All of this argumentation is primarily emotional. It makes a lot more sense to talk about what you actually want (utility?) and what social changes would be an improvement, than to try to argue that some social institution is intrinsically bad.
- logicchains 12y ago
  A slave owner makes you worse off than if they didn't exist, by chaining you, beating you, and threatening to kill you if you try to run away. An employer doesn't necessarily make you any worse off than if they didn't exist; if you'd be starving without food/payment from them, then their actions aren't the root cause of your starving, nature is, as if they didn't exist then you'd still be starving.
  - calibraxis 12y ago
    The slaveowner relies on social institutions which enforce slavery. If you escape, a man with a stick will enforce the slaveowner's property relations over you. Capitalism also relies on the man with a stick. (To bizarre extremes: even if you're just innovative in a way which is supposedly someone's "intellectual property", or fileshare bytes representing a movie, then a man with a stick is supposed to come after you if you try to ignore their threats.) Capitalists control a society which causes people to starve and be homeless if they can't rent themselves out to one of them. Only in an Orwellian society could economics be considered separate from politics. (In more decent societies, those who try to act like slaveowners — and capitalists for that matter — would merely be considered psychotic criminals. You couldn't be a slaveowner, because taking people as property is kidnapping. You couldn't be a capitalist, because "owning" scarce means of production is theft; witholding food/shelter to force people to obey is assault.)
    - logicchains 12y ago
      Again, it's not society which "causes people to starve and be homeless". Hunting and gathering cannot support seven billion people; it is the accumulation of capital in forms such as advanced agriculture that allows the food production that currently sustains the world population. If all capitalists and corporations ceased to exist, a huge proportion of the world population would starve due to the collapse in the global structure of production. The means of production have to be produced by someone. How is it theft for capitalists to own the means of production when they produced it? And if you say well the workers produced it, the workers only agreed to work for pay, not for a stake in it (else they'd be investors/partners, not just workers). Here's the thing: even with just two people interacting without any society around them whatsoever, it's possible for one to agree to work for the other for payment of some sort but without claiming an ownership stake in whatever's produced (i.e. common employment contract). To make such a thing illegal, you must necessarily introduce violence into the system, to prevent these two people from carrying out a mutually agreeable exchange.
asgard1024 12y ago
I recall Chomsky saying something along the lines that this position was a common position of most proletariat in the late 19th century. I am sure he has sources to back this up, but I don't know those. So I would be wary to designate that as an "illogical" and not a cultural thing.
- k1m 12y ago
  Two videos of Chomsky making this point: 1. Recent interview with Chris Hedges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwRf5HHm2Mo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwRf5HHm2Mo 2. Older interview: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2860018 http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2860018
- _delirium 12y ago
  It used to be a common position of American proto-libertarians as well, in the "individualist" tradition, like Lysander Spooner. There's an old American 18th/19th-century ideal of having your own tools/land/freedom and not having your labor subordinated to a boss/master/government/lord/duke/company/whatever. Even Abraham Lincoln had a very tepid defense of wage work. He argued that working for a wage wasn't slavery or serfdom, in response to southern claims that northern workers weren't free men either. But his argument boiled down to: yes, wage-workers aren't truly free men for now, but since they are paid and not legally compelled to stay, they can save up money and eventually become their own masters, therefore their subordination to a boss should be regarded as merely a temporary condition that they will be able to escape from.
voyou 12y ago
From Graeber: "Instead of people selling us or renting us out we rent out ourselves." Graeber is suggesting that renting someone's labour-capacity is fundamentally the same whether the person is renting out their own labour capacity, or the capacity of someone else. Claiming that two things have the same structure is a logical argument; it may be wrong in this case, but it's not "an emotional appeal."
- eggy 12y ago
  If you are claiming it is logical because it is an argument from analogy, even if it is a false analogy, then technically I would have to agree to that. My comment about it being emotional is that when an argument from analogy is made between two things that have an obvious, fundamental difference between them, choice vs. force, then I see the person appealing to your emotions under false analogy by using the common term 'rent' for both situations. This is where ad hominem stems from, and although a term in logic, arguments based on it are not logical and usually are filled with emotion.
  - jahaja 12y ago
    It's not choice vs. force though, it's indirect force vs direct force. To make an actual choice in this case would require that the person about to rent out his or her labor has some alternative to wage labor; such as enough land to be self-sufficient, or perhaps enough capital to work for oneself.
calibraxis 12y ago
A common pro-capitalist talking point is that merely saying "wage slavery" is somehow "emotional". And then this evidence-free rhetoric is supposed to somehow undermine your point. This is basically desperation; of course renting yourself to obey the commands of an order-giver is wage slavery. Capitalist ideology relies on Orwellian propaganda that it's "freedom" to watch your tongue all day, lest you get fired and appeal to some other wage-slaver that you're a useful tool to rent. Also, it helps demonstrate that capitalist economics is mainly scientism. This soft social science hitches a ride on the popular imagery of the solemn-faced scientist.

by eggy 12y ago

dethstar 12y ago

You take the master that is willing to take you, primarily to put food in your mouth and roof over your head. edit: for the down voter(s). Take the time to argue how this is different (feel free to downvote me still) I don't really care about internet points but would rather engage in conversation about this topic.

svedlin 12y ago
"Those sent to work in town often had some input in their choice of master and some, like Frederick Douglass, were allowed to live on their own upon surrender of satisfactory wages." [1] That was probably far from the norm in the 1830's. Frederick Douglass was no less in bondage though. Later in life, Mr. Douglass said: "[E]xperience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other". [2] "Frederick Douglass was an African-American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement[.]" [3] (upvoted you) [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=jI4euhKoEaEC&pg=PA65 http://books.google.com/books?id=jI4euhKoEaEC&pg=PA65 [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&pg=PA676 http://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&pg=PA676 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass
jvm 12y ago
In anarchism, you take the egalitarian society that is willing to take you, primarily to put food in your mouth and roof over your head. All of this argumentation is primarily emotional. It makes a lot more sense to talk about what you actually want (utility?) and what social changes would be an improvement, than to try to argue that some social institution is intrinsically bad.
logicchains 12y ago
A slave owner makes you worse off than if they didn't exist, by chaining you, beating you, and threatening to kill you if you try to run away. An employer doesn't necessarily make you any worse off than if they didn't exist; if you'd be starving without food/payment from them, then their actions aren't the root cause of your starving, nature is, as if they didn't exist then you'd still be starving.
- calibraxis 12y ago
  The slaveowner relies on social institutions which enforce slavery. If you escape, a man with a stick will enforce the slaveowner's property relations over you. Capitalism also relies on the man with a stick. (To bizarre extremes: even if you're just innovative in a way which is supposedly someone's "intellectual property", or fileshare bytes representing a movie, then a man with a stick is supposed to come after you if you try to ignore their threats.) Capitalists control a society which causes people to starve and be homeless if they can't rent themselves out to one of them. Only in an Orwellian society could economics be considered separate from politics. (In more decent societies, those who try to act like slaveowners — and capitalists for that matter — would merely be considered psychotic criminals. You couldn't be a slaveowner, because taking people as property is kidnapping. You couldn't be a capitalist, because "owning" scarce means of production is theft; witholding food/shelter to force people to obey is assault.)
  - logicchains 12y ago
    Again, it's not society which "causes people to starve and be homeless". Hunting and gathering cannot support seven billion people; it is the accumulation of capital in forms such as advanced agriculture that allows the food production that currently sustains the world population. If all capitalists and corporations ceased to exist, a huge proportion of the world population would starve due to the collapse in the global structure of production. The means of production have to be produced by someone. How is it theft for capitalists to own the means of production when they produced it? And if you say well the workers produced it, the workers only agreed to work for pay, not for a stake in it (else they'd be investors/partners, not just workers). Here's the thing: even with just two people interacting without any society around them whatsoever, it's possible for one to agree to work for the other for payment of some sort but without claiming an ownership stake in whatever's produced (i.e. common employment contract). To make such a thing illegal, you must necessarily introduce violence into the system, to prevent these two people from carrying out a mutually agreeable exchange.

asgard1024 12y ago

I recall Chomsky saying something along the lines that this position was a common position of most proletariat in the late 19th century. I am sure he has sources to back this up, but I don't know those. So I would be wary to designate that as an "illogical" and not a cultural thing.

k1m 12y ago
Two videos of Chomsky making this point: 1. Recent interview with Chris Hedges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwRf5HHm2Mo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwRf5HHm2Mo 2. Older interview: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2860018 http://www.tubechop.com/watch/2860018
_delirium 12y ago
It used to be a common position of American proto-libertarians as well, in the "individualist" tradition, like Lysander Spooner. There's an old American 18th/19th-century ideal of having your own tools/land/freedom and not having your labor subordinated to a boss/master/government/lord/duke/company/whatever. Even Abraham Lincoln had a very tepid defense of wage work. He argued that working for a wage wasn't slavery or serfdom, in response to southern claims that northern workers weren't free men either. But his argument boiled down to: yes, wage-workers aren't truly free men for now, but since they are paid and not legally compelled to stay, they can save up money and eventually become their own masters, therefore their subordination to a boss should be regarded as merely a temporary condition that they will be able to escape from.

voyou 12y ago

From Graeber: "Instead of people selling us or renting us out we rent out ourselves." Graeber is suggesting that renting someone's labour-capacity is fundamentally the same whether the person is renting out their own labour capacity, or the capacity of someone else. Claiming that two things have the same structure is a logical argument; it may be wrong in this case, but it's not "an emotional appeal."

eggy 12y ago
If you are claiming it is logical because it is an argument from analogy, even if it is a false analogy, then technically I would have to agree to that. My comment about it being emotional is that when an argument from analogy is made between two things that have an obvious, fundamental difference between them, choice vs. force, then I see the person appealing to your emotions under false analogy by using the common term 'rent' for both situations. This is where ad hominem stems from, and although a term in logic, arguments based on it are not logical and usually are filled with emotion.
- jahaja 12y ago
  It's not choice vs. force though, it's indirect force vs direct force. To make an actual choice in this case would require that the person about to rent out his or her labor has some alternative to wage labor; such as enough land to be self-sufficient, or perhaps enough capital to work for oneself.

calibraxis 12y ago

A common pro-capitalist talking point is that merely saying "wage slavery" is somehow "emotional". And then this evidence-free rhetoric is supposed to somehow undermine your point. This is basically desperation; of course renting yourself to obey the commands of an order-giver is wage slavery. Capitalist ideology relies on Orwellian propaganda that it's "freedom" to watch your tongue all day, lest you get fired and appeal to some other wage-slaver that you're a useful tool to rent. Also, it helps demonstrate that capitalist economics is mainly scientism. This soft social science hitches a ride on the popular imagery of the solemn-faced scientist.